The Comeback of the King

by Ben Jeapes

  Ted blinked furiously and quickly looked away. Couldn’t go home?

  “You did say that apparently the King can’t command everyone?”

  “Yeah,” Ted mumbled. “He said something about ‘royal subjects’.”

  “I got that too.”

  Ted heard a beep as Malcolm pressed more buttons, and then he heard the voice of Diana Jackson, Malcolm’s wife. Malcolm leaned over and held the phone up so Ted could listen in.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, darling. If I mentioned the King, what would that mean to you?”

  “Ooh, I don’t know. Elvis?”

  “And if I said the King wants Ted?”

  “I’d ask how Ted knew Elvis. Dare I ask why you might say this?”

  Malcolm grinned.

  “We’ve got a guest staying the night. Talk to you soon.” He hung up and put the phone away. “That’s assuming you don’t mind?”

  “No.” Ted swallowed, suddenly almost overcome. “No, I don’t. Thanks.”

  Malcolm put the Jaguar into gear and fixed his gaze on the wing mirror, waiting for a break in the stream of cars.

  “So, what’s the capital of Spain?”

  “Uh – Madrid?”

  “Well, I’m glad GCSE History taught you something.”

  The car pulled out into the traffic.

  Chapter 8

  “Yes, Grandma,” said Amanda. She tucked her legs underneath her on the sofa and leaned back into the cushions, phone in one hand and glass of wine in the other. “I tracked down an international drugs cartel, zapped a few cars with the speed gun and personally wasted a couple of paedophiles. There was a bit of extra paperwork for that last bit because I wasn’t actually registered to use a firearm at the time but I’ll sort it out.”

  The question had been: ‘have you met any hardened criminals yet?’ She smiled at the reaction to her answer at the other end of the phone and took a sip of the wine.

  “And I decided to let the speeders off, because if you’re able to speed on the ringroad at all then frankly you should be commended for initiative, not punished.”

  The lights in the flat were dim. She was warm and glowing after a good long bath. The Brandenburg Concertos were playing softly in the background. The flat was a little bit dingy in daylight and she had to make the decision: let it be and concentrate on buying a place of her own, or do it up anyway? At the end of her first day at the new nick – a surprisingly challenging day, what with a minor civil emergency and meeting the King and, oh yes, the Gorse boy – it was the just the right low-level distraction to satisfy the mind.

  “No, seriously, they’re a good team and I’m glad I made the move. It’s like coming home.” She quickly pre-empted the squawk of protest. To Grandma, Amanda’s childhood was like yesterday, so: “Well, yes, technically I suppose it is coming home.” The fact that her entire life from nursery school onwards had been lived somewhere else didn’t count. “So, how are you?”

  And she settled even further back into the cushions, and put her mind into neutral in preparation for the free-association ramble she was about to get on life in the old folks’ home (sorry, Grandma, sheltered housing complex). Mrs X was giving the manager a hard time about the food. If the young lady who came to visit Mr Y every weekend was his granddaughter then Grandma was a Dutchman. Mrs Z’s winning streak in the Scrabble club was phenomenal: maybe Amanda could masquerade as an undercover OAP and investigate Grandma’s suspicions of cheating? Amanda prodded her along with the occasional amused ‘Mm’.

  She couldn’t help noticing there was one topic Grandma didn’t touch on at all, and it was very rare for Grandma to have an unshared thought on anything. The old lady had been born in Salisbury and intended to die here, so Amanda thought it was appropriate to interrupt:

  “What do you think about the King coming back?”

  Grandma detoured onto the new topic without hesitation.

  “She’ll never abdicate, dear, she remembers the last time. Charles will just have to wait his turn–”

  It took Amanda a moment to realise Grandma was talking about the present monarch of the United Kingdom and her eldest son. So, the King meant nothing to her, and that meant Grandma wasn’t one of his royal subjects. Amanda pursed her lips. It would have been fun to get the old lady’s views. Well, that was a shame, but that was how it went.

  Now Grandma was back onto the topic of her neighbours and the distinct possibility that one of them was growing drugs in her window box. Amanda could slip back into neutral again and think about …

  An image of Ted Gorse filled her mind. Her eyes narrowed. She had felt the King’s call go out for the brat. She had been in the middle of wrapping up at the end of the day, or she would have gladly done what she could to bring the boy to his rightful sovereign. She presumed someone else had done that by now. And serve the kid right. Rude, arrogant, disrespectful …

  “Yes,” said the King, and Amanda was no longer in the living room of her rented flat.

  It wasn’t like a new experience. It was as if she remembered something that had already happened, long, long ago. Amanda remembered she stood at the top of a low, rounded hill which would one day be called Old Sarum. There was rich green turf underfoot and a well-wrought palisade all around. The sky was blue on a clear day. The breeze flowed over her like cool, reviving water. No machine had ever pumped exhaust into this air. Only a few million humans throughout the entire world had ever breathed it. It was scented with the untamed forests and the wild rivers of prehistoric Britain.

  In front of her was the palace. She remembered that it was made of logs and turf, one storey high, wide and low with a pointed roof. The wood hung together by the command of its owner. Not one nail, not one screw had been used.

  In front of the palace stood the King. Without even thinking, she dropped down to one knee.

  “My lord,” she said.

  The clothes he wore in the burger bar had been the wrong size and he had buttoned the jacket up in the wrong holes. And he had been clean shaven. Here he wore skins and furs over his stocky, muscular frame the same way a modern man would wear a bespoke silk suit. They were tailored with sinew and flaxen thread to a standard that would challenge a modern clothes factory. He looked older, his eyes deeper and his face more lined, but he radiated power and calm authority.

  The Queen walked forward to her husband’s side. Her robes of ice-clear water shimmered in the sun and a retinue of water maidens followed behind her. She gave the King a nod, as between equals, and took his arm, and both of them smiled down at Amanda.

  “We had to bring you back here,” the King said, “to meet someone. You may stand,” he added.

  He glanced up at the sky behind her. Amanda twisted round to look behind her, and climbed slowly to her feet.

  The sky beyond the King had been clear and blue. Behind Amanda it was storm-tossed and dark. Angry clouds billowed out from a central point and they bore with them a kindred spirit.

  “It’s you–” Amanda whispered. She had never seen him before but she recognised him the same way she had recognised the King.

  “The ice left a rich land.” The King was speaking behind her but his words seemed to fill her consciousness. “My first royal subjects followed it northwards and they found me. I was in the grass that they walked on and the soil that bore their crops. My lady the Queen gave them rivers and streams to water their fields, to bear them fish, for their boats to travel along. And for the most part my people were happy. But sometimes they would want more than just tilling the soil and fishing. The forests were thick and dark and sometimes, just sometimes they wanted to hunt. Deer.” A pause. “Rabbits.” A longer pause, and then the King sounded almost derisive: “Birds.”

  She wasn’t just hearing him with her ears. Her entire body thrummed to the vibration of his words. She was picking up senses and meanings that he didn’t articulate out loud.

  “People?” she asked, not taking her eyes from what she saw.

 
; “Sometimes,” the King acknowledged mildly. “Even my kingdom had transgressors – those who took what was not theirs to take, out of anger or jealousy or lust. They would seek refuge in the forests and they had to be found and brought back to me to face my justice. And so I gave my people the Hunter.”

  Instinct made Amanda try to meet the Hunter’s eye – to describe him, give him an IC code, get something that would stand up in court. But all she got was images. Horses bucked and stampeded. Falcons swooped down from the sky. Pike lurked in weeds over a gravel bed, to lunge out at their prey and seize it in armour-plated jaws. Where all these images came together, like the eye of a hurricane, there the Hunter was. And she knew, somehow, that part of his spirit had always been in her.

  She couldn’t meet his eye but she sensed he had met hers, and he had given her a nod of approval.

  “Not a lot of need for him in the modern world,” she murmured.

  “The modern world has hunters. Just the skills are different. You have the skills, Inspector Amanda Stewart, Wiltshire Constabulary. Have the spirit too. Be my Hunter for this new age.”

  Amanda closed her eyes and felt the Hunter join with her. His senses were her senses. Her needs were his needs.

  “I need a hunting pack,” she murmured.

  “Any of my royal subjects is yours to command.”

  “What do you want hunted?” she asked. She turned to face the King and Queen, and saw the shape of their smiles. “Or, who?”

  Chapter 9

  Malcolm lived in a detached, modern-style house on an estate in Wilton where every house looked different, and it was of course immaculate.

  Diana was a small, neat woman – Ted always hesitated to use the word ‘dumpy’, but sometimes it was the only one that really worked – with permed grey hair. She took one look at the lump of incarnate teenage misery her husband had brought home and went into mother duck mode. Not at all put out by having a third mouth to feed, she sat him down in a comfortable chair in the living room, she gave him a small bowl of nuts and raisins to fight off the hunger pangs while dinner cooked, and she found him a pair of slippers to wear (he had already kicked off his trainers: he wasn’t going to risk the soft, cream-coloured carpet). All the while she kept up a flow of chatter about absolutely nothing that Ted could just gratefully tune out.

  Ted declined a gin and tonic – the taste in his mouth was bitter enough – so Malcolm poured him a glass of wine to go with the nibbles. The soft crackle of the fire was just louder than the sound of rain outside. The living room was clean and warm and quiet. Classic FM played very gently in the background. There was no noise of squabbling siblings and Ted only kind of missed it. And the King didn’t know where he was. Ted had never really appreciated the notion of sanctuary before, but now he felt he had arrived in it.

  He knew it couldn’t last, but it meant he was prepared for the moment that they sat down to a mouth watering Bolognese, bubbling gently with steam laced with garlic and spices, freshly grated parmesan that smelled so much nicer than the kind that came out of a container, rocket salad on the side, fresh and crisp, and Diana fixed them both with a look every bit as piercing as Malcolm’s on those occasions he forgot he was no longer a barrister, and said, “So, what’s all this about, then?”

  And so they told her. Ted started but faltered when he realised he was going to have to talk about the burger bar. As the blood started to pump to his face, Malcolm swooped in neatly to say something vague about “powers of compulsion” and make it clear the King was causing people act in unspecified ways that weren’t usual to them. After that they could each tell their own experiences in their own words.

  “Well,” Diana said at last. “And here was me thinking your parents must have thrown you out. Something simple like that.”

  “Yeah,” Ted said, and he managed to pull a weak smile. “If only.”

  “Well, I can honestly say I’ve never heard of this King and I certainly didn’t get any telepathic messages saying I had to hand you over. So you’re safe here.”

  “And that’s the first thing we have to work on,” Malcolm put in. “Apparently, Ted and I are his royal subjects. You’re not. What’s the difference between us?”

  “Well, let’s see.” Diana sat back. “You’re both men, I’m a woman.”

  “He can command women too,” Ted said with some feeling.

  “I’m Libra, he’s Taurus–”

  “If this means I have to start believing in star signs,” Malcolm murmured, “I will be very upset.”

  “And of course, you were both born locally – at least, I presume you were, Ted, while I’m from Kent.”

  “You think there’s something in the water?” Malcolm asked, but his lips were pressed thoughtfully together and he did seem to be considering it. Ted ran through the list of known royal subjects of the King. No idea where the inspector was born, but himself, Mum, Barry, Robert, Sarah …

  “All our family were born here,” he said reluctantly.

  “It’s still a little bit like saying that being born under the cusp of a wandering star means you’re going to meet a tall dark stranger tomorrow,” said Malcolm.

  “You know who you need to talk to, don’t you?” Diana said brightly.

  “Yeah,” Ted muttered. “She’s not answering–”

  *

  They put him in what had to be the spare room, because it was so pristine and frilly that no one could possibly live in it full time.

  “Here’s a spare pair of Malcolm’s pyjamas, dear. Sorry, they’ll be a bit big.” Diana put the strange garments on the end of the bed and Ted tried not to stare at them with horrified fascination. “And here’s a spare towel. You know where the bathroom is. Well, sleep tight. We’ll wake you up in the morning and I’m sure something will come to mind. We usually go to church and you’re welcome to come too if you like. Nighty night!”

  Pyjamas! Ted thought. He held the top half up and let it unfold. He was a shorts-and-t-shirt man. He hadn’t worn pyjamas since he was a toddler. I’m going to be officially old! I’m going to be like Barry! I’ll have to start wearing a cardigan!

  It was also a good couple of hours before he usually went to sleep. He couldn’t really ask to watch TV. He didn’t have his laptop. He had his phone but no wifi, and just the phone signal wasn’t great for going on the net. He sat on the bed and twiddled his thumbs. Now what?

  There was a small bookcase he could study. A Bible. A couple of books of newspaper cartoons that barely cracked a smile. A range of historical bonkbusters that his mum would have enjoyed reading.

  He could have really done with his laptop. Working on TEDLISH for a few hours would take his mind off anything. But no, even his pride and joy was denied him at the moment.

  Suddenly he realised he was perilously close to tears. He wanted to be home! He wanted Sarah to be winding him up by being smart, and he wanted Robert to be driving him up to distraction by following him everywhere like a puppy and asking if he could join in. He wanted Mum and Barry to be having one of their endless and apparently fascinating talks about gardening or housework or what A had said to B at the office. He wanted the weight at the end of the bed that meant the cat had decided to come and join him during the night, to sleep off the latest mouse (half of which might also be at the end of the bed). He wanted all the ups and downs and highs and lows and triumphs and petty frustrations of life at 34 Henderson Close. Arse!

  He blinked furiously until the threatened tears had slunk away again, and gloomily studied the screen of his phone. Nine missed calls, two voicemails. Malcolm had made him send a carefully phrased text home, just to reassure them he wasn’t spending the night in a bus shelter somewhere: Staying with a friend. Talk to you soon. The calls had kept coming. He had felt the phone buzz silently in his pocket throughout the evening.

  Arse, he thought again, and dialled for voicemail. If it was from his mum then he was hanging straight up again because he knew if she was crying then he would just break down comp
letely too. Anyone else, even Barry, he was prepared to listen to just for the familiar voice.

  The first voicemail was indeed Barry.

  “Ted.” With just the one word he sounded old and weary, and there was a long pause after that. “We got your text. Thank you for thinking of us.”

  Another pause.

  “Ted, I don’t understand what the hell is going on here. Your mother is inconsolable – well, I do understand that. Resorting to violence, Ted? Even for you, that’s–”

  He trailed off again and Ted rolled his eyes. ‘Even for you’? Funny how Barry could always find a way to put him down even when he was trying to be nice.

  But then Barry took him by surprise.

  “No, that’s not fair, is it, because I laid hands on you first. Maybe I should say, even for us? Even for us that’s a new low. Do we really think so little of each other? I thought–”

  A sigh.

  “I thought we’d made real progress since the summer. Since Robs came home and you started at college you’ve calmed down one hell of a lot. And, credit where credit’s due, working for Malcolm has done you a lot of good.”

  In the great Venn diagram of life, Ted thought, that was probably the one place where his and Barry’s worldviews overlapped.

  “Since … well, since those horrible things happened in the summer, I’ve felt able to reach out to you like I hadn’t since … well, since I married your mother.”

  “You reached out to me?” Ted muttered. His memory had it exactly the other way round. This was, he had to admit, quite an interesting insight into how Barry saw stuff.

  “And I thought – maybe I was just flattering myself – that you were reaching back. But now? I shouldn’t have lost my temper, I know, but you were refusing to do one thing, a very simple little thing that would make your mother happy. Go to this King guy, whoever he is. I don’t know what’s happening in her life, don’t know what’s changed but … she needs to be happy, Ted. Don’t you think that? She needs it and she deserves it. She’s a wonderful woman. I’ll admit, Ted, you and me both, maybe we don’t fully understand how her mind works sometimes. But I do know you could have done this, it was important to her, and you were refusing.”